A Night of New Works at Unitarian Society

Two local playwrights, Brianne Zulkiewicz and Anna Fox, presented their new plays June 21st at the Unitarian Society of Northampton. Both plays feature young women protagonists struggling against gender roles and societal expectation. Brianne's play, entitled Keeping Sweet in Summer, delves into the lives of four fundamentalist Christian women dealing with the trials of motherhood and contentment. Brianne says of her inspiration for this play,

"I read [Fundamentalist Christian] blogs obsessively for years before this play was even a glimmer in my mind."

 
Anna's play, Anna Something, is a self-described "queer Cinderella tale" complete with a distant drunk of a stepmother, two "evil" stepsisters [both also named Anna], and a fabulous fairy drag-mother.  Anna describes her writing process as tending:

"...to start with an idea. A word, a name, an image, a location; some small kernel of information that sparks my interest, then I go from there. I grew up with two step sisters and a step mother, who were not evil, but they were loud, and very much occupied there own world. A world that existed long before me an that I knew I would never fell a part of. Writing a Cinderella adaptation felt inevitable for me, I just wasn't sure when or how. One day last year I was conversing with another Anna...and she told me her and her two sisters were all named Anna, so there I had it, three sisters named Anna and the one who doesn't fit in is called Anna Something."

Brianne and Anna have been friends since attending PVPA and have collaborated on other projects including Only Children, which they produced a reading of  last summer.

Keep an eye out for more of their work around the Valley!